


wait in the winter garden

by bulut



Category: Blue Lock (Manga)
Genre: Feelings, M/M, Pining, Relationship Study, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bulut/pseuds/bulut
Summary: Nagi Seishirou has vein-latticed, snow-cold hands.
Relationships: Mikage Reo/Seishirou Nagi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	wait in the winter garden

**Author's Note:**

> this is written in past tense and since, as a non-native speaker, i lack an accurate sense of the two layers of past tenses in english, there might be mistakes.
> 
> that being said, i hope you enjoy. i've been longing to write for them but i could only manage something short with the little time i had.

When Reo first met Nagi Seishirou, there were no sparks flying. With the disgrace most teenager boys considered an achievement to have, he was slouched in purposefully scruffy attire; then with the grace of a cheetah, he sprang forward to catch his falling smartphone, and Reo couldn’t think of much other than his recently procured dream and how this kid was going to be his most important asset in conquering it.

He counted on his charms successfully selling this dream to the new kid, too. He counted on having a tall, flexible, athletic player on his team to pave the way to the World Cup a little easier. He counted on synchronising plays, pushing one another to do better, becoming something outside his prescriptions. He didn’t count on handing his heart to an unwitting, uncaring teenage boy on a silver platter.

See, he’d always gotten what he’d wanted. He’d gotten much more than what he’d wanted. He thought if there was something out of his reach, he could grind until he could extend his reach. When he found himself lost and confused, always expecting something out of the time spent with Seishirou and coming back empty-handed when it was inexplicably absent from their interactions, he learned that a human’s ribcage was the one barrier no one can ever break through. He realised people’s hearts were the one thing he could never, ever reach unless they let him.

And, that. That hurt more than anything that’s ever scraped his knees or sat aching in his muscles after practice.

When he was a kid, every friend he’d made had an expiration date until they felt too small beside him, overshadowed by his presence, spite for the mansion he lived in and the toys he had, venom for the opportunities laid before him. As he grew up, the crowds around him simultaneously maturing, the expiration date became one for the genuine feelings, not the hollow shell of them called a “friend”. Maybe as a starry-eyed kid, he’d looked forward to having someone and not having his surname stand an impenetrable wall between them, but he got older and he accepted it.

When someone came around, though, someone who looked beyond the surname and saw through it, they didn’t see something worth keeping. Reo was no fool; he knew the second he stopped putting in effort, the straw ladder bridging him to Seishirou would go up in one lick of flame, barely leaving ashes behind as if it had never existed. And, that. That alone could have drowned him if he didn’t force himself afloat with boldfaced lies day after day, pretending everything between them didn’t hold up in a precarious balance on his back.

He was desperate but who wouldn’t be, in the face of a presence like this? Each word from Seishirou’s mouth had Reo soaring up, crashing down. He would cut one unimpressed look at Reo and Reo would give up whatever he’d been doing for good. They would score a goal, Seishirou would offer a high five, Reo’s heart would beat out of his chest. His praise would pitch a touch too eager, Seishirou would shut him right up with a “Cut it out,” the words would choke him so violently he couldn’t even open his mouth to speak for three days afterwards without coughing.

Maybe that wasn’t so much Seishirou’s presence as the pedestal Reo put him on. And maybe that wasn’t so much anything Seishirou did as simply who he was.

Ask another person and perhaps they would paint a Nagi Seishirou too careless, too cold-hearted, too boring, and give it no second thought. It would only make sense since there is no one in the world loved by everyone else. Nagi Seishirou, however, was the one person in this world Mikage Reo was meant to fall in love with. And this Mikage Reo was also one of those people who fell as if they wanted to pulverise the last of their bones when they did.

Nagi Seishirou had vein-latticed, snow-cold hands, but the ice of them couldn’t compare to the ice of his eyes. Each time Reo was foolish enough to face their gaze, direct, unfiltered, because those times he could remember and count in his sleep, they would cut into him like shuriken. Half-lidded, disinterested, they always were, but never without a wisp of smoke from the smoulder ever, ever within, and Reo, stupid Reo, would still seek them out if he knew they would burn him alive.

Nagi Seishirou was a glacier, reflecting the light of the sun so fiercely you would think it was actually him radiating, the sun reflecting. Nagi Seishirou joined him in a game of football one day and emerged superior from the other side. He was a mirror that concealed flaws, magnified assets, a mirror Reo wished could see him, but he, he didn’t get prettier or brighter or lovelier when he loved. His love was unsolicited, unsought, unneeded, and the mirror concealed it.

If he knew Seishirou even only slightly, if what they had went as far as two strides off the shore, if he had ever been considered a friend for some passing of time, he believed Seishirou would say “Reo’s a good friend,” when asked, but calmly move on in time. As for himself, he wouldn’t be moving on from where he’d let himself fall anytime soon.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading.


End file.
